Etsy Love - Paper Art by bookBW

How awesome is this paper ornament! It is constructed of origami stars, folded and stitched together to form  a paper ornament. Lovely work by Etsy artist Benjamin Wierel, aka bookBW.

It's my favorite thing this Thursday.

Paper Hedgehog!

Paper Source, the store, is one of my favorite place to shop for high quality paper.

I used to have one in Boston near me, but since our move to CA, I've been going to the one in Palo Alto. Burlingame will be getting a Paper-Source store, too, though we might move to San Mateo in the meantime. But, it will be close enough, and that means a lot.

Anyway, the reason I am mentioning Paper Source, is that sometimes when I'm browsing their products (online and in person), I get inspired to create or re-create something from paper. For example, I will see a pattern I like, whether it's on a paper, or pillow or anything, and then I will try to do something similar in my own way from paper.

Case in point, the hedgehog you see here is a direct inspiration of one of their rubber stamps.

I made it via paper-piecing technique, and in terms of materials, it's just two shades of card stock (white and shimmer brown) and glue.

It is part of my new obsession with paper animals. I have recreated the owl, the turtle, the fox, and I have a few other forest animals in the works. The hedgehog is ready, and as soon as we make the move to a new apartment, it will hang on our wall.

Paper Owl

I got the inspiration for this owl from Paper Source; their holiday owl garland, to be precise. I made the owl using a paper piecing technique.

Overall, I used only two kinds of paper punches: a 3" whole punch, and a 1" scalloped circle punch. I cut the rest of the paper pieces by hand.

Since I wanted something clean and white, I used two different shades of shimmer white card stock over a base color of blue.

As you can see, the body is made of layered circles.

I am also making a few more paper forest animals: a fox, a hedgehog, a turtle and so on.

White Paper Sculpture - CORAL REEF

This is the fourth piece of my recent PAPER SCULPTURE Project, called "TEXTURES".

The first piece was SEA URCHIN, the second one SWIRLS, the third JELLYFISH, and this is the latest addition to the series of sea-inspired paper art pieces.

Constructed of waves of cones, this piece, CORAL REEF, draws inspiration from the sea floor in shallow waters where tiny marine animals group together to form communities.

I used only paper, canvas and glue to create this art piece, and the rest of the paper sculptures in this series.

White Paper Sculpture - JELLYFISH

This is the third piece of my recent PAPER SCULPTURE Project, called "TEXTURES".

The first piece was SEA URCHIN, the second one SWIRLS, and one more is in the works, for a total of 4 paper art pieces.

I named this one JELLYFISH because it reminded me of the marine creatures' translucent form. Leaning against my window, the sculpture had a similar feel, like looking at a swarm of jellyfish from above.

Looking at it from a side, it reminds me of mushrooms, but as this is a marine-inspired series, I prefer jellyfish.

The final piece is coming, too.

Again, it will be made of just paper, canvas and glue, and it will be some sort of sea creature.

White Paper Sculpture - SWIRLS

This is the second piece of my recent PAPER SCULPTURE Project, called "TEXTURES".

The first piece was SEA URCHIN, and I have 2 more in the works.

For this one, all I can say is that it was inspired by coral reefs, swirls and the technique of quilling paper.

I like how the swirls let the light through in different ways, so when you look at it and move your head it looks like the swirls are spinning.

:)

White Prickly Paper Sculpture - SEA URCHIN

I have started a series of paper art pieces called "TEXTURES".

The idea is to have differently textured sculptures made only from three things:

- canvas,
- glue, and
- paper.

The paper in all 3 or 4 pieces will be the same. The only thing I can play with is the shape of the paper.

I have finished 2 so far, with the 3rd piece almost complete and I'm thinking of doing one more. We'll see.

This one was inspired by the shape of a sea urchin. It's prickly and wavy, soft and edgy. It sits on my window for now, waiting for the other pieces to be ready before they can all go to hang on the wall together.

Soon.

Filter Paper LIGHT - Art Sculpture

I have always been fascinated with handmade lighting, especially if it involves paper. You may recall the blue paper flower with LED lights I made a while ago, or the various vellum paper lanterns I made for myself and for my friend Belinda.

Anyway, this lighting project is a bit different. I still used LED string lights to light it all up, but instead of card stock paper, vellum or tissue papers, I used coffee filter paper.

Coffee filters are cheap, wonderfully fluffy, pliable, half-opaque, half-translucent and best of all, light.

They do not weigh the finished piece down. For an amateur handy-person like myself, and I cannot stress the word "amateur" enough, hanging this paper/light sculpture on the wall was easy breezy. I hammered a couple of nails and hanged the piece using a bit of wire. Much easier (and lighter) than hanging massive pictures, or posters.

TUTORIAL
Here are the steps for making it.

Materials:

• LED string lights (mine are from IKEA)
• Coffee filters (about 200)
• 1 art canvas 14"x14"
• Some string or sewing thread
• Glue gun, and 
• Wire.

Directions:

1. Arrange the lights on the canvas and sew them in place.


2. Fold a coffee filter like in the pictures and glue it on the canvas, careful not to touch the lights. Do this with 150-200 coffee filters and see if you need any more to cover the holes (if any).


3. Add wire at the back of the canvas and hang on the wall.

Here are some more pictures of the finished piece, currently hanging on our dining room wall.

Book and Paper Art Sculptures

It's a great day for enjoying paper art sculptures!!

From top to bottom: "Blue Coral" by abadova, "Altered Book Folded Paper Sculpture" by yinsteadofi, "Paper House Mobile" by creatorB.

It's snowing today

It's cold outside today and there's great white stuff everywhere. Finally!
We've been waiting for this snow for months!

I'm drinking a hot cup of cocoa, and watching the snow from my Boston-facing window. It sure looks gloomy, this winter light, but I feel sunny on the inside.

These paper beauties below?

They are the white wall flowers I've been working on for a photographer who contacted me through Etsy. Three are done, 15 more to go...

Paper Art Dreams - 3D Butterfly

This wonderful butterfly sculpture is made out of paper by AnneMarie Lieftink a.k.a paperartdreams, an artist I found on Etsy.

I love how serene it looks and how all the little paper pieces come together in one great form.

Great job AnneMarie!!!

Happy Winter

There is such joy in Zoe Bradley's window installations, especially the ones she did for Tiffany&Co., and such attention to detail that I can't help but feel moved by her paper work.

Lovely!!!

Sleeping Baby

This "Baby sleeping father hands" Giclee print by OrangeOptimist on Etsy catches the most perfect news in my life perfectly.

My baby boy has arrived, healthy and hungry, and occupies my nights and days with perfect efficiency :) Dad is here to lend a helpful hand, but it's up to mama to keep him happy and well-fed.

So, on that note, I'll be taking a little break from blogging and creating paper pieces for a few weeks, just so I can bond with my boy and recover.

Please email me / leave comments / check out my Etsy shop if you see something that you like here and would like to talk to me about paper flowers for your wedding and I'll do my best to reply in a timely manner.

Thanks for understanding and be back to blogging soon!

- Marija

Zoe Bradley's Awesome Work

I adore Zoe Bradley's work. She does amazing window installations, some of which feature beautiful paper flowers, like this awesome New Town Plaza installation.

Or these flowers for Kate's Paperie.

What an inspiration!!!
Wow!

A deer, a rabbit, a squirrel and a badger

I have always loved to draw and dabble in watercolors, but it's been years since my last attempt. A couple of weeks ago I started thinking about it again. Unsure at first, I started to draw an animal, and little by little, it started to actually look like one :)

The inspiration behind the effort was the idea that I'd maybe create some kind of watercolor art for my soon-to-be-born son's nursery.

I hadn't done it in a really long time that I wasn't too sure I'd pull it off with these little forest animal drawings, but now that they are actually done, I feel so happy and proud of them.

The drawings were partly inspired by Esop's fables (which both me and my husband used to read as kids), from illustrations in old-school children's books that we received from a close friend and from me spending hours looking at animal prints on Etsy.

As you can see in the pics below, each animal drawing is mounted on a couple of layers of designer paper, which I'll hang on the wall next to the baby's crib using push-pins instead of picture frames (for fear of them crashing down and hurting my baby).

I'll post more pictures of the wall art once it is set up in the nursery.
Stay tuned...

Fox Clock

I want this wall clock!!!

The design is awesome, it is made from bamboo, and it goes perfectly with a blue wall - just like the one we already have in our home.

See it in Graphic Space Wood's shop on Etsy here.

Plastic Bottle Lights

Can you believe that these beauties are made from recycled materials? Soda bottles, to be more precise.

The creator is Sarah Turner, an award-winning eco designer who likes to make beautiful items from waste materials.

I'm in love with her work!!!

See more of her lighting fixtures in her Etsy shop.

Amazing!!!

Matte Stephens on Etsy

I found Matte Stephens' Large Giant Suburban Bear Monster as it visits Chicago today and simply could not resist sharing it on my blog.

The shroud of rain hasn't left Cambridge in weeks and this toothy Large Giant Bear is sweet enough to cheer me up on yet another gray day.

I also love the couple meeting to feed birds in the rain.